


Dreadnought

by urami



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: But not as creepy as Georgiou, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Graphic Violence, Lorca is a bit creepy sometimes, Not Canon Compliant post 1 x 14, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Regret, Revenge, Some Dark Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urami/pseuds/urami
Summary: Gabriel Lorca wasn't expecting to die, especially not at the hands of his cannibalistic archnemesis. But after a strange conversation with the avatar of Death, he finds he has a second chance to save the woman he loves, his crew, and multiple universes by taking out the woman who killed him. There's just one problem.He's stuck as a ghost.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So the title has nothing to do with Star Wars, believe it or not. It's actually the title of the [Machinae Supremacy song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH6T40aw-Hc) I was listening to when I got the idea for the story. And I couldn't come up with a better title. 
> 
> Because canon has made a stupid-ass decision I have elected to ignore it, sorta, by writing this fic. I liked Lorca, even if he was an impostor from the Mirror Universe, and he deserved better than getting stabbed in the back by Georgiou. This is completely going to get jossed after the season finale, so everything involved in this story is going to be canon divergent from 1x14. 
> 
> Please be aware- at least at the beginning, everything's sort of told from Lorca's point of view, and he's a bit of a creeper. Also incredibly pissed off that he's dead. As the story progresses I will add additional tags to cover most things that might come up, but if you're easily disturbed I would suggest using extreme caution. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Even though he was no stranger to pain, nothing could ever have prepared Gabriel Lorca for the agony of being decompiled atom by atom, thought by thought, as he fell through the mycelium reactor core. But he barely even noticed the physical pain. The only thing he was really aware of was his hatred, all-consuming rage, and furious grudge. Although, if he’d cared to examine it further, he would have noticed just a small touch of regret.

That unbelievable _bitch_ had _literally_ stabbed him in the back. He never should have let Michael onto the Emperor’s ship, not until he’d taken it for himself. He should have brought Stamets- even though he was fucked up on spores- or Tilly, despite her timorousness.. Maybe the still-crazed Ash/Voq/whoever the fuck he was at this point would have been the better option. He’d already done enough damage to the _Shenzhou’s_ crew just by trying to fight off his dual nature. All he’d have to do is tell him that the people over there wanted to destroy Klingon identity, and the other man would take care of the rest. But no. He’d brought the woman he loved into the middle of a firefight, and even worse, exposed her to that wretched woman again. It had taken _decades_ to break through the brainwashing that psychopath had inflicted on the Michael originally from his universe. And he _knew_ that _this_ Michael was still wracked with guilt over her mutiny and subsequent death of her own universe’s Georgiou- of course that manipulative bitch would take advantage of that to bring her back under her spell.

The last thing he’d seen before he’d fallen into the reactor was the heartsick expression on Michael’s face. If anything, that was almost more painful than the stab wound and the atomic decompilation combined. And he worried. Michael was strong, but was she strong enough to survive that place on her own? Had she even escaped the detonation? Had Georgiou taken her prisoner? Had she done anything _else_ to her? Honestly, he wasn’t sure what would be the worst outcome.

Belatedly, he realized the pain had more or less stopped. He’d also stopped falling, and surprisingly, the landing was quite soft.

Looking around the odd… chamber… he found himself in, Gabriel idly wondered where he’d ended up after all. The room seemed to be made of a silvery, gelatinous material (even the floor, he felt himself just barely sink in a little) that wibbled and wobbled when he poked it experimentally. Everything was cast in an eerie green light that seemed to come from nowhere. But other than himself, the room was completely empty. It clearly wasn’t any sort of heavenly afterlife- not that he’d really ever believed in such a thing- but it didn’t match any description of hell he’d ever heard.

“YOU ARE AT THE CROSSROADS, IN MY HOME,” a voice suddenly boomed. Gabriel winced and fought the urge to cover his ears. It sounded like metal screeching and screaming as it was torn in half, then being crushed under a pile of falling rocks. It was even worse as the gelatinous material seemed to only amplify the sound.

“GABRIEL LORCA,” the terrible voice continued. “YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE.”

“Where is ‘here?’” Gabriel asked once the echoes died down.

“THE CROSSROADS OF LIFE AND DEATH,” came the response. “YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE.,” it reiterated.

For a few minutes, everything was completely silent. Gabriel didn’t say anything, waiting for the voice to offer an explanation of its own accord. Finally, the voice did break the silence.

“WE ARE WASTING TIME,” it boomed. “YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE.”

“You’ve said that,” Gabriel replied, beginning to get annoyed. “But unless you tell me where ‘here’ is- and _don’t_ say ‘the crossroads of life and death,’” he added acerbically. “Who are you? And why _shouldn’t_ I be here? As far as I can tell, I’m dead..”

“AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE,” came the response. “AND WHO AM I? THAT IS A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER,” the voice screeched. “I AM KNOWN TO BY MANY NAMES TO MANY SPECIES. I AM EONS OLDER THAN A HUMAN’S BRAIN COULD EVEN HOPE TO COMPREHEND. I AM THE INFINITE VOID, THE MOTHER OF ENTROPY, THE END OF ALL THINGS.” The voice seemed to be getting softer, becoming more recognizable as… maybe not a human, but something approaching it. As the voice spoke, small tendrils of black smoke began to seep out from the silver walls. “YOUR SPECIES ALONE HAS CALLED ME MANY NAMES. THE MORRIGAN. IZANAMI NO MIKOTO. HELA LOKADOTTIR. KALI. HECATE. KALMA. HINE-NUI-TE-PO. NEPHTHYS. MENG PO. But humans from your part of Earth tend to know me as the Grim Reaper. I am Death.”

It took a lot to shock Gabriel Lorca. His life had inured him to many horrific things. But the wisps of black smoke coalescing into a shape sent a wave of horror right down to his bones.

He was looking at, for lack of a better way to put it, the decaying corpse of a young woman wrapped in a burial shroud. A black veil hung in front of her face, obscuring her eyes and most of her nose, but Gabriel wasn’t in any hurry to figure out what was underneath. The woman’s disheveled black hair hung almost to her waist, and from what he could see, her skin was the sickly greenish-gray of decay. Instinctively, Gabriel took a step backwards. The woman- the corpse- the goddess of death?- laughed.

“Not what you expected?” she asked lightly.

“Not particularly, no,” Gabriel replied. The entity laughed again.

“You can thank Paul Stamets- the one working for the Emperor anyway- for that. After he corrupted the mycelium network, he very nearly wiped out all life in existence throughout the multiverse. I exhausted myself trying to hold it back, as did my counterpart. I can’t appear to you in any other form.”

Curious, Gabriel couldn’t help himself. “If you really are Death, why would you try to hold back the end of everything?” Death gave him a disparaging look, at least as much as a corpse could.

“Because Death cannot exist without Life,” she replied, “and it is not yet time for the destruction of this multiverse. There is a googolplex of years before that will be necessary.” She sighed. “Thankfully, the Starfleet Paul Stamets was able to save the network, allowing it to regenerate itself. He’s brilliant, you know, probably the smartest of all of him throughout these different branches. He’s a good man.”

“He is….” Gabriel murmured. But then again, his criteria for a “good man” was pretty low. The Starfleet Paul Stamets at least wasn’t a deranged mad scientist cooking up biological weapons for a genocidal psychopath.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting you to be dropped right into my lap,” Death said suddenly. “And now there’s another problem.”

“What?”

“The surviving Michael Burnham made a suicidally stupid mistake and grabbed onto the Emperor from your world right before the transporter energized, dragging her onto the _Discovery. And_ into _her_ original universe.” Gabriel’s mouth dropped open- so that monster _had_ managed to brainwash the poor woman all over again. Death continued. “And because the leaders of Starfleet are more suicidally stupid than Burnham, they’ve given her command of the _Discovery.”_

“THEY WHAT?!” Gabriel yelled. “WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?! SHE _EATS_ PEOPLE! She’ll kill them all, they’ll be defenseless! Oh god- _Michael!”_ His eyes widened to an almost comical degree. “What the fuck did that bitch do to her?! I’ll kill her myself if she hurt her! And Stamets- he’s still helpless! Tilly! Saru! What’s she going to do to the rest of my crew!?”

“You care about them,” Death mused. “A far cry from your plan to use them to get home because they were expendable.”

“They’re good people,” Gabriel muttered. “And nobody deserves to be under the command of that _lunatic_.”

Death nodded. “I agree. If left unchecked, your original universe’s Philippa Georgiou will be responsible for countless deaths. Entire species will be at risk, such as the Kelpiens….” the woman looked as disgusted as a corpse could possibly look. “I _hate_ cannibals,” she muttered under her breath, so quietly Gabriel almost didn’t hear it. He gave her a strange look, which she noticed. “Just because I’m Death doesn’t mean I have to like every form of it,” she said. “Besides, if you’ve never had to process the aftermath of its victims, _especially_ hers…. I usually have to send them to, well, you’d probably call it a ‘waiting room’ while their bodies and sanity regenerate.” The corpse-like woman shuddered. “I have to draw the line somewhere.” Gabriel nodded.

“I agree,” he said. “I may not _like_ aliens, or want them in my empire, but I draw the line at eating them.” This jogged his memory and he stood up straighter with more resolve than he’d ever felt when he was alive. “So what do I need to do?”

Death tapped her chin with a disturbingly long fingernail. “Under normal circumstances I would restore your physical body and transport you to wherever you need to go. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and I’ve been weakened greatly. The best I can do is send you back as a ghost.” Seeing Gabriel about to protest, she held up a hand to forestall his complaints. “As a ghost, you can’t die again, and I know for a fact Georgiou does not know how to perform an exorcism. There’s nothing she can do to stop you.”

A truly evil smirk stole across Gabriel’s face. “Is that so….” Death matched his with one of her own, just barely visible below the black veil she wore.

“Indeed. You’ll also be able to get into electronics and force them to do what you need them to. With practice you will even be able to possess the living for short periods of time. But we’ve wasted enough time talking. If you want to save Michael Burnham and the rest of your crew, you need to get going. Every moment wasted is more time spent that _she_ could be spending getting her claws into them. Perhaps literally, in Mr. Saru’s case.” The woman stepped forward, extended a hand, and abruptly shoved Gabriel in the chest, right where his heart would be beating, if he were still alive. Gabriel felt a strange tingling sensation, rather like a static electricity discharge.

“Leave now,” Death said. “You will instinctively know where to go first. Do not waste time.” She waved a hand, and Gabriel zoomed upwards and out through the jelly-like ceiling.

A few moments went by, and eventually a small sphere of pure light oozed out of the walls as well. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” it asked in a deep baritone voice. “He’s one of them, you know. This could backfire.” Death snorted.

“You forget, I can see his soul. If he hadn’t been born into that particular branch world, he would have been a good man. As it is, he still has some morals, albeit rather weird ones, and he’s in love. He would do anything to protect Michael Burnham.”

“But you and I are not strong enough now to intervene if anything goes wrong,” the sphere said. The woman snorted again.

“Why Life, I didn’t think you cared!”

“I’m a ball of light and you can’t change your form at the moment,” Life replied. “This is already so risky, we’re putting two universes at risk. Is it really worth the effort?”

“You know as well as I do that it wouldn’t stop at just two universes. I should have taken her soul years ago to prevent this exact disaster. If she conquers this one, she’ll move on to others, if she figures out how to do it. And she will, there’s too many of the surviving crew of the _Shenzhou_ on _Discovery_. They have no idea they’ve been saddled with a monster as a captain,” Death said, a note of finality in her tone. “No. As you said, neither of us is strong enough now to stop it, not after preserving the network. If anyone can do it, Gabriel Lorca can.”

Life sighed. “I sincerely hope you are right.”

 

To Be Continued…


	2. Chapter 2

It took a few moments for Gabriel to determine exactly where he was, despite Death telling him he would “instinctively know where to go.” He appeared to be in the crew quarters, but whoever’s room it was had not really added any personal touches. There were no personal holos, no off-duty items of clothing, no modifications to the bed to make it more comfortable for the occupant, no cosmetics or jewelry like he would expect to see if the room belonged to one of the female crew members. There wasn’t even a novelty coffee mug like Stamets’ “I Mush Shrooms” mug he’d gotten from Dr. Culber as a joke. However, he _did_ notice an oddly-shaped pair of boots standing in the corner- almost like they were designed for a hoof rather than for a humanoid’s foot.

Commander Saru’s room, then.

Why was he needed in here, of all places? Had Death _drastically_ misunderstood why he wanted, no, _needed_ to go back? She _had_ mentioned the Kelpien several times during their conversation.

Muttering under his breath about stupid zombie women not being able to tell the difference between species, Gabriel tried to stalk out of the room… only to bounce hard off the metal door. Swearing, he clutched his head and sat back up. Okay, so apparently holodramas were wrong and ghosts couldn’t actually walk through walls. It was while he was pondering this conundrum (how the hell was he supposed to get around the ship? Just hang out until someone else alive needed to go through a door?) that he heard violent retching coming from the small bathroom off to the side.

“It’s alright,” Gabriel heard Saru say. “Get it out of your system.” More retching, a broken laugh, and finally, retching followed by a disgusting splattering sound. Disturbed, Gabriel floated (!) to the door and experimentally tried to put his hand on the switch. Instead of pressing it, however, his hand went straight through it. Maybe he _could_ actually go through walls? He tried this time with the actual door, and when that worked, phased the rest of his body through.

Michael was doubled over the head, emptying the contents of her stomach while Saru awkwardly rubbed comforting circles on the small of her back. Both of them shuddered involuntarily as Gabriel manifested. He tried to back himself up, but only ended up halfway to the ceiling. If he had been alive, Gabriel would have held in a breath.

“I need to get Engineering to fix that vent again,” Saru griped. Michael hiccuped, a sound that might have been a laugh under normal circumstances.

“It does that a lot? I thought it suddenly got cold in here,” she said, a watery quality to her voice. The despair in her voice just made Gabriel’s heart hurt- what he wouldn’t give to take her pain away. If only he’d thought his plan out better…. He could have been sitting on the imperial throne with Michael as his empress and the crew (yes, even Saru) as his trusted courtiers. Instead, he was a ghost, and floating in an alien’s bathroom while the woman he loved was violently ill.

“Any time anyone in this block takes a shower, the ship’s filtration system sends the air over here after it’s cooled and the moisture removed,” Saru replied, with some distaste. “Miss Buchanan from Engineering said she’d fixed it, but I think it must have broken again. Perhaps it was when we crossed universes again.” Michael rolled her eyes.

“Buchanan? Isn’t she that chubby little thing that’s always hanging around the labs thinking nobody’s going to notice her?” Gabriel snorted. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Imogen Buchanan had a Klingon-sized crush on Lieutenant Stamets. The fact that he was approximately fifteen years her senior, in a committed relationship, and not interested in women didn’t seem to daunt her. “You were able to get her attention long enough to get her to fix the vents?”

“Yes, well… there wasn’t much point in her being in the science labs while Lieutenant Stamets was comatose,” Saru replied. “It would be hard for her to come up with a logical excuse for missing work while he was under, and everyone else was working hard to try to get back home.” He stopped abruptly, and placed a hand at the back of his neck. “My threat ganglia...” he trailed off. This just set Burnham off again, and both Gabriel and Saru watched as she violently expelled bile from her body one more time. There wasn’t anything else left to void.

“So-sorry,” she coughed weakly.

“I did not realize my anatomy was so disgusting to you,” Saru said flatly.

“It’s not that- caught me off guard. I wasn’t totally honest with you- _she_ force-fed me some Kelpien’s ganglia while I was on the _Charon._ I saw yours, and it just… urgh… I’m so sorry, Saru, I had hoped to spare you.” Both Saru and Gabriel winced. For himself, Gabriel wasn’t sure what the more nightmarish scenario would be- being eaten himself, or being forced into cannibalism. It was just another one of Pippa Georgiou’s crimes that she would pay for in the afterlife, if what Death had said was to be believed. Saru, on his part, just looked resigned.

“It is not as though I didn’t know my species is commonly eaten by others,” he said. “Though I admit I had never heard of it among humans.” Michael just looked even more upset with herself, prompting Saru to continue. “I once told you that you terrified me. I regret that now. There’s no one I would rather have by my side than you. I know you’re not going to attack me, and I know you’re not a threat. I suppose I am just going to be on high alert as long as she is on this ship.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael reiterated. Saru shook his head.

“You didn’t want to watch another one of her die again. I understand why you did it.”

Gabriel had seen enough. It suddenly felt like he was intruding on something intensely private and personal. It was completely platonic (at least, he was pretty sure it was, he’d never gotten any indication from either of them that they were interested in xenophilia), but he still felt like a voyeur, like he was peeping in on a very private moment between siblings. So he allowed himself to phase back out through the wall and into Saru’s quarters. This time, he decided to try the wall to get into the corridor, rather than trying the metal door again. Apparently, moving around as a ghost was going to take some practice.

Aimlessly, Gabriel floated down the hallways. He wasn’t really interested in the crew quarters- there was only _one_ person aboard this ship that he cared to see in any state of undress, and he already felt creepy enough as a ghost. Besides, over the years he’d accidentally seen into more rooms not meant to be seen by the general public than most, and he occasionally ended up learning more about certain people than he’d ever wanted to know. He was actually relieved that all he’d found in Saru’s room were his boots. He didn’t think he could handle it if he’d discovered his Kelpien first officer collected plush toys or was a fan of gory action holos.

He also made sure to avoid anywhere he thought he might come across any of the Starfleet brass. Or Sarek. He was uncomfortable enough around Michael’s adoptive father when he was _alive,_ Gabriel didn’t want to take the chance that Vulcans could see ghosts or something like that.

He let himself drift past random crew members, briefly listening to their idle chatter. Didn’t anybody realize there was a war on? Did nobody think it was suspicious that Philippa Georgiou- who’d been presumed dead for over a year- just _happened_ to show up on board right after they’d come back from a parallel universe where, at least to the eyes of the average individual in Starfleet, everyone was evil? Seriously? You’d think this was just another day in outer space, from listening to the inane conversations of these people.

Eventually, though, he did find someone who seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. _Two_ someones, in fact.

He’d known them back in his home universe as well as in this one, although in this universe they’d already grown to be older than they ever would be in his own. Ensigns Seymour Scottsdale and Momoko Hidaka., In his own universe, they had been cadets in the Imperial Fleet, assigned to the _Buran._ When it looked as though the ship was going to be captured, or explode, they’d joined hands with their third friend, Klayton Dace, who was training in the medical bay. The three of them had thrown themselves out the airlock rather than take the chance of capture.

“ _We can’t! The captain needs us! Someone’s got to look after the surviving crew!”_

“ _Klayton, be reasonable, there’s not going to **be** surviving crew- not if we’re captured,” Scottsdale said. “We’ll be tortured to death and I don’t even want to think about what will happen to Momoko if they get their hands on her!” He’d spat disgustedly on the floor. “You forget I saw what the Emperor’s troops did to my mom and sister, don’t think they’d do it to her, or us, actually, come to think of it, whether or not we’re in the fleet. You don’t have to go with us, but please consider it.” _

“ _The escape pods are being captured already,” Hidaka had added. “There’s nothing you can do for them!”_

Ultimately, they’d come to an agreement, and the three of them had gone to the airlock, wished their captain well, ignored Gabriel’s shouted order for them to stop- he knew what he was doing and their suicide wasn’t necessary, but they’d set the airlock’s release mechanism to automatic, on a timer. All three of them had died clinging to each other, with smiles on their faces. As far as they were concerned, they’d avoided a future of torture and probable rape before being publicly executed.

They had all been sixteen years old.

Coming to this other universe and seeing the three of them on his ship again, this time as actual Starfleet Academy graduates who’d achieved the rank of Ensign rather than just being cadets, and this time a year older than they’d ever managed to become under his command was like a punch in the gut to Gabriel. He should have looked after them more carefully- the youngest members of his crew had been nothing but loyal to him, and he’d failed them. He’d watched them commit suicide because they’d thought he couldn’t protect them. He could have tried harder to save them. He could have brought them with him. It was a big universe after all. They could have disappeared into the crowd on Earth somewhere, or he could have made sure they’d be installed on his ship, the other three be damned. He thought they’d have liked the Discovery.

Shaking his head to clear it of troublesome memories, Gabriel followed Scottsdale and Hidaka to one of the leisure decks. Nurse Trainee Dace was already there, sitting at a table in the back corner. He looked like he was waiting for something. Which he probably was, Gabriel amended his thoughts.

“We have a problem” Klayton Dace said as soon as the other two joined hi, Momoko snorted, while Seymour rolled his eyes.

“Tell me something I don’t know. The captain’s dead, the chief of security is strapped down in the med bay because he thinks he’s a goddamn Klingon, nobody’s seen Specialist Burnham since she supposedly beamed back aboard, and oh, yeah- a dead woman showed up alive and well and is captaining our ship. Should I go on?” Seymour asked sarcastically. Klayton ignored him.

“Buchanan and Choi are dead,” he said flatly. “I found Buchanan this morning near the shuttle bay in a puddle of her own blood. I’ve never seen anything like it- it’s almost as though a small sawblade went through her head,” the nurse trainee said, shuddering. “And Cadet Tilly nearly tripped over Choi when she left her quarters this morning. He died the same way.”

“What the fuck,” Seymour stated bluntly. Momoko looked between the two men- boys, really, Gabriel amended his thoughts. Even as seventeen-year-olds they still seemed so young.

“Something is going down on this ship,” she said, “And I don’t know about you two, but I’m not sure I want to stick around to find out what it is.”

“You want to defect?” Klayton asked. “Where? It’s not like we can go join the Klingons!”

“What if we went to Vulcan?” Seymour asked, “At least they don’t torture their prisoners.”

“How the hell are we supposed to get to Vulcan?” Klayton asked. “We don’t even know where we are.”

“Be glad you’re in medical,” Seymour snarked. “Because you’d suck as an ensign.”

“Shut up, Mr. I-Once-Almost-Crashed-A-Shuttlecraft-Into-A-Moon.”

“That was _one time!”_

“Both of you shut it,” Momoko interrupted. “I know how we can get out of here. You forgot, my parents run a freight line.”

“How’s that supposed to help us?” Klayton asked, baffled. Seymour looked like he wanted to smack him, and Gabriel had to stifle a laugh. It seemed like yet another thing was the same across universes- teenagers, even ones in military service, still bickered like, well, teenagers. Briefly, he wondered what it would have been like if he and Michael had children. They’d be cute, he thought- how could they not be, when their parents were so good-looking? Gabriel thought he’d want at least one son and one daughter.

Of course, it was never going to happen now, thanks to that bitch with imperial delusions. Who was on this ship. With Michael. With the rest of the crew. With these three. At least the ensigns seemed to have determined that there was something suspicious going on.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the more Gabriel thought these ensigns were his best bet. They hadn’t served on the _Shenzhou_ with Captain Georgiou, so they were less likely to take anything she said at face value. They were suspicious enough already as it was. And from what he could tell, they were loyal to him. Or, at least, they were more suspicious of everyone else than they’d been of him.

Momoko interrupted his thoughts, picking up her PADD and flicking through the screens. “Okay, so the frieghters from our company within three parsecs of here are the _Yome Maru,_ the _Adzuki Maru,_ and the _S.S. Enduring Riches._ We’ll skip the _Yome Maru_ and the _Enduring Riches.”_

“Why?” Seymour wanted to know. Momoko made a face.

“The _Yome Maru_ is my mother’s ship. You really want to explain why we’re ditching Starfleet to my mom? She’d throw me overboard herself for desertion. And the captain of the _Enduring Riches_ is a creeper. I don’t want to be stuck on a space boat with him until we make it to Vulcan. No, the _Adzuki Maru_ is our best bet. My uncle Tsutomu is the captain and he and my mom can barely stand each other. The only reason he still works for the company is because my dad refuses to let my mom fire him. He won’t rat us out.”

“How are we going to get a message to him? It’s not like we can just walk onto the bridge and ask someone to send it for us,” Klayton pointed out. Momoko waved the PADD.

“I’ll send him a text-based message. He used to traffic spice, he knows how to be discreet about picking up cargo. He’ll know what to do when he catches up with us.”

Gabriel swore under his breath. If these three managed to pull this of and defected to Vulcan, then he’d have to find someone else who would both be willing to help him and less likely to panic when he tried to contact them.

And _that_ was even assuming Georgiou wouldn’t just order the destruction of any ship that strayed too close to the _Discovery._ He had to shut this down now, before history repeated itself and these three backed themselves into a corner where death was their only option. He’d watched them throw themselves out of an airlock once. He wasn’t going to let it happen again. But if they couldn’t see him, how was he going to do it?

Then, he remembered- Death had told him that he could possess electronic devices. And luckily enough for Gabriel, PADDs happened o be electronic. Not entirely sure what he was doing, he half-lunged, half-floated directly over to the table, took aim at the device, and jumped right in.

It felt… bizarre was really the only way to describe it. Gabriel felt like he’d just been hit upside the head with an electrified baton, and the PADD sparked slightly both inside and outside. Momoko yelped and dropped the device, while Gabriel looked around his new surroundings. Circuitry sparked around him and he very nearly tripped on the power supply. There wasn’t anything in there that looked as though he could use it to reach out.

“Hello?” he called hesitantly. Muffled he heard one of boys (he wasn’t sure which one) swear.

“What the _fuck?!”_

 

_tbc…._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mug was supposed to say "I [mushroom emoji] Shrooms" but AO3 did not like that at all... ah well.
> 
> Another thing I noticed is that there's really not a lot of background characters in the show, except for the party scene. So I know there have to be some, somewhere. That's where the ensigns/trainees come in. And honestly, I'm not really sure how Starfleet expected everyone to just accept it when a dead woman- a woman who was dead because Michael Burnham committed mutiny at that- suddenly just shows up on the ship and takes command. For everyone who'd been on the _Shenzhou_ it was understandable- they'd gotten their beloved captain back. But for everyone else? Just accepting it seems a bit far-fetched, so that's where the OCs come in. Despite what it seems like they won't actually be all that central to the story, I just needed to get Lorca into an electronic device to communicate with _someone_. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do not eat the poisonous mushrooms...

  
It took a surprisingly short amount of time to convince the three ensigns that he wasn’t a malicious hacker or a dangerously self-aware AI, Gabriel thought. If he’d actually cared, he might have found that a cause for concern, but as it was, it suited his purposes perfectly fine.

“So if what you’re telling us is true, there’s a genocide about to happen. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Klingons, but holy shit. This is /so/ not what I agreed to when I joined Starfleet,” Klayton said, eyes wide after he’d listened to what the strange voice from the PADD had to say. A shaken Momoko nodded in agreement.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” she said. “This is so fucked- I don’t care what my mother says, I want off this bucket of bolts!”

“But if what this guy is saying is true, everyone on board this ship is in danger,” Seymour cut in. “If we desert we’re leaving everyone with a fucking cannibal as a captain. She already killed Captain Lorca. If she could do /that/, does anyone else stand a chance? If she blows up Qo’noS, where’s next? Vulcan? Romulus? /Fucking Earth?!/ This is bigger than us now.”

“Anyone else includes us, dumbass.”

“Yeah, I know,” Seymour agreed. “But there are things that are more important than just one or two or three people. Too many people are dead already. If I give up my life to save the universe, does it really matter if I’m dead? Our species- and all of the others- is still alive!”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. How annoying. He’d never really believed in self-sacrificing suicidal stunts. “If you three do /exactly/ as I say, then only one person has to die, and I guarantee you it’s no more than the bitch deserves. If you do this right you’ll remove a grave threat to the galaxy at large, and end the war while you’re at it.”

The three friends looked at each other, seemed to telepathically reach a decision, and then in unison faced the PADD as though talking to a disembodied voice living in consumer electronics was a totally normal thing to do.

“What do you want us to do?” 

* * *

Paul Stamets was having the worst month of his life. Not only was his life partner dead, so was his mycelium crop. His life was in ruins, he’d almost died (and he had no idea what the long term effects of the overload were going to do to him), his work was pointless, and he had no idea what the next step was. What was the point?

To make matters even worse, the contamination had spread to most of the other types of mushrooms and fungi in the garden. The penicillin crop was a total loss, and Stamets really hoped nobody was going to want to eat a nice grilled portobello or bowl of cream of shiitake mushroom soup anytime soon. They decay had even somehow gotten into his hidden personal stash of more... exciting... mushrooms. The liberty caps were totally gone, and the /Psilocybe samuiensis/ were withered husks of what they had once been.

About the only thing that was actually thriving was the death caps. Actually, Stamets didn’t remember planting any /Amanita/ anything. Was that a side effect of the decay? Was it actually airborne /Amanita phalloides/ that was contaminating the network?

Oh, what did it matter anymore? He had no intention of ever going back into the network again. His work had been his downfall. He didn’t want to look at a mushroom ever again.

Actually, the more he thought about it, the better the idea of just chowing down on some of those death caps seemed. At least then he’d get to see Hugh again...

A soft hand gently placing itself on his shoulder snapped him out of it. Looking up, Stamets was surprised to see it was the small Japanese girl in the command training program who was always lurking around with the nurse trainee Hugh had been supervising. Momoko, he thought he name was. Hugh had never really trusted Trainee Dace or his friends, calling them the “Sketchy Ensigns” when it was just the two of them. This one was especially sneaky. Stamets remembered Hugh suspecting that she was the culprit behind a few mysterious disappearances of morphine and other strong painkillers right out of the sickbay.

“Lieutenant Stamets?” she asked softly. “I know it’s not much coming from me, but.... I’m sorry for your loss.” 

Stamets eyed the girl a little suspiciously. He’d never talked to her even once before. Awkwardly, she shuffled the tip of her shoe on the ground, seeming to know what he was thinking. “Look... do you remember the Orion spice cartel war a while ago? I get it. My brother was onboard the /SS Ultraviolet/.” Stamets winced- the incident where an Orion cartel had forcibly boarded a freighter looking for drugs and then when they couldn’t find any, blew up the ship out of spite, had been all anyone had been able to talk about a few years ago. He looked up again at Momoko, seeing nothing but sympathy in her eyes. Maybe Hugh had been wrong and this girl really hadn’t had anything to do with the thefts.

“Were they ever able to recover the black box?” Stamets finally asked. Momoko grimaced.

“They did,” she said. “Every crewmember’s family got a copy of it, and because the /Ultraviolet/ was one of my family’s ships, I got to listen to the whole thing, so I’d know what was waiting when I got old enough to get my own crew. And I’ll say this- at least Dr. Culber died quickly. The crew of the /Ultraviolet/ wasn’t... so lucky. It was actually what inspired me to apply to the Academy as soon as I turned sixteen.”

“I’m sorry,” Stamets said. The girl smiled wanly, a pale imitation of genuine happiness.

“I’m over it,”she replied. “I just wanted to say that I understand your situation and that I’m here if you ever need anyone else to talk to.” Without waiting for a response, she reached forward, grabbed Stamets by the shoulders, and pulled him into a hug, crushing his head against her chest. Within her hold, she could feel Stamets stiffen, then relax slightly once he realized he wasn’t being attacked. Looking over the top of Stamets’ head, Momoko watched the ventilation duct at the back of the greenhouse. The grate swung open, Klayton Dace rushed out and gathered up a whole bagful of poisonous mushrooms, then hurried back to the vent, securing the grate behind himself. Once she was certain her friend was safely back in the ventilation system with his illicit cargo, Momoko released Stamets, who looked at her oddly. The young woman blushed.

“I thought you could use a hug,” was all she offered by way of explanation.

“Mm,” was all Stamets, for his part, could think to say. Then, after an awkward pause, added, “I suppose I understand.”

“You know where to find me if you need to talk to someone who understands it,” Momoko replied. “Just call for me if you need anything. I’m not messing with you, I promise that anything you need I’ll do my best to help you with, sir.”

“Thank you,” Stamets blurted out, feeling kind of guilty that he’d been suspicious about this young woman’s intentions. Admittedly he didn’t have good track record when it came to younger female crewmembers developing inappropriate attraction to him, but there really was no reason to jump to that conclusion. Momoko smiled, patted the lieutenant on his shoulder once, then scuttled out of the labs.

Stamets never noticed that the entire patch of death cap mushrooms had disappeared over about 45 seconds of time.

* * *

While Momoko and Klayton were dealing with the mushrooms, Seymour was busy making his way down to the brig, muttering under his breath about the job he’d been assigned. Why did /he/ have to be the one to go deal with the Klingon?

Luckily for him, the corridors around the brig were completely deserted, and the brig itself was empty other than one other person. The individual involved was the single prisoner Seymour was looking for.

Expectantly, the ensign watched the Klingon woman. He wasn’t sure if she was even awake- she sat facing the wall with her back to him. Quietly, he tried clearing his throat. Nothing. He tried a slightly louder cough. Still nothing. Gritting his teeth, Seymour decided to try to a more direct approach.

“Um, excuse me? Miss Klingon?”

L’Rell startled- honestly, he had never been addressed so formally by a human before- she definitely never expected anyone would call her ‘miss.’ There wasn’t really an equivalent honorific in Klingon, and most of the humans she’d met had just sort of screamed incoherently, in either rage or abject terror. Frowning in thought, she turned around to take a look at whoever was insane enough to address her as such.

L’Rell wasn’t very good at guessing human ages- they all looked rather like children to her, but she had a pretty good feeling that the scrawny human male slouching outside her cell was an adolescent. He had the same sort of pinched look Klingon boys had when they hit their growth spurt in their teenage years, and she’d never seen a human male with quite as impressive a hairline as this one. “What do you want, small human?”

“I need to talk to you about something very serious,” Seymour said. “If I unlock this cell, do you promise not to kill me? At least let me say what I have to before you attack me.” The Klingon woman shrugged.

“If I did, I wouldn’t get off this ship alive.”

The first thing the human boy did was release the restraints. L’Rell stretched- it really did feel good to be able to move freely again. While she wasn’t exactly grateful for the release- after all, it was the humans who’d locked her up in the first place- this young one was showing a remarkable amount of trust by freeing her limbs before completely opening the cell. Whatever was going on must have become a truly dire emergency. At the very least, she decided to at least hear what the child had to say.

The very second the cell’s forefields deactivated, Seymour started talking. “I don’t know how much you have been able to hear all the way down here, but we are in trouble. My friends and I have reason to believe our captain was murdered a few days ago. And the person Starfleet picked to be his replacement is insane. We don’t have any hard proof yet, but we have reason to believe she was the murderer, and that she intends to carry out a genocide. We think she’s going to try to destroy the entire planet of Qo’noS. /AND/ she eats /people/,” Seymour added disgustedly. L’Rell looked sharply at the boy, choosing to focus on the destruction of her home world.

“How do you know of this?” She asked. “Tell me!”

Seymour fidgeted. “This is going to sound completely crazy, but from a hacker that got into my friend’s PADD. He told us he had to hide his identity for now or he might be killed as well.”

L’Rell stared the ensign down for a long moment. As far as she could tell, the human was telling the truth, or at least he truly believed what he was say8ing. But still, she needed to know. “How do I know this is not a trap?”

“I... don’t know,” the human admitted. “But I swear to you I have no intention of lying. I didn’t agree to wholesale planetary obliteration and destruction of a whole species when I signed up for this. I never intended- look, I get that we’re at war, but that’s the operative word. I’m not- maybe I’m a bad person, maybe it means I’m dishonoring my species or whatever, but I never agreed to just randomly kill women, children, non-combatants in general.” Seymour stared at the floor. L’Rell looked at him, an unreadable expression on her face.

“You’re naive,” she told him. “A Klingon warrior wouldn’t care.”

“Do I look like a Klingon to you?” The answer was so short, sarcastic, and unexpected that L’Rell couldn’t do anything in response except snort a laugh. For his part, Seymour just looked horrified that he’d mouthed off to a being that could probably quite literally bite his head off with ease. “Um. I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s, uh...”

L’Rell decided that she liked this human, at least as much as she could like any human. At the very least he was entertaining. “I am called L’Rell,” she told the boy. “Very well. I will help you, at least to stop the destruction of my home.” Seymour looked unbelievably relieved.

“Thank you, L’Rell,” he addressed her simply. The Klingon woman inclined her head briefly.

“What is it you had planned?” 

* * *

Even though Acting Captain Saru had technically given him leave to go most places on the ship as he pleased, Ash Tyler found himself sitting in his quarters most of the time. There just wasn’t anywhere he wanted to go. The only person he wanted to see wanted nothing to do with him, and Ash couldn’t blame her. He’d tried to kill her, after all. He’d been a brainwashed Klingon spy, one whose cover had been so good he hadn’t completely realized he even had a cover at all until he’d met his other self.

And Michael- how could she not hate him? He couldn’t blame her? When Voq’s memories of sleeping with L’Rell had resurfaced the only thing the Ash Tyler personality had been able to see it as was rape. It hadn’t helped that even when he’d forgotten he’d ever been Voq at all that L’Rell had insisted on continuing the relationship. He was sure that Michael had taken their situation the same way. He’d technically lied to her. Of course she wouldn’t forget or forgive.

Staring down at his lap, Ash contemplated his options. There weren’t many, especially now that he knew the Terran Emperor was aboard the ship. He could space himself, maybe- the transporter room might not have anyone on duty, and the airlock was usually deserted. But then that would leave Michael alone with a lunatic, if everything he’d heard about the other woman aboard the /Shenzhou/ was true.

He could try to assassinate the woman. She would deserve it. He’d be doing the universe a massive favor. But that might just get him spaced by someone else. Not that he really cared. He’d space himself if it wasn’t for the other problems.

Staring at the floor of his quarters moping in self-pity he almost didn’t hear the knock at his door. Wondering if the Emperor had come back to finish off the ‘disgusting hybrid’ herself, he morosely called, “come in.” The door opened and a woman stepped into the room. Ash blinked- at first, he thought with a shock of horror that the Terran really /had/ come back to kill him, but then logic reasserted itself. Other than a few very minor superficial similarities, like hair color and eye shape, the two women actually looked almost nothing like each other. For one thing, this girl wore her hair in two small buns rather than loose or pulled back simply. She barely broke five feet and was several decades younger than the Emperor. Vaguely, he remembered the girl in the periphery of the bridge on a handful of occasions, but Ash didn’t know anything about her, not even her name or rank.

“Can I help you?” He asked blankly. The girl nodded and stepped inside.

“Whatever you do, don’t scream,” she said, cold tone contrasting drastically with her appearance.

“Wait, what are you-“

“It might bring someone to see what’s going on and I really don’t want to have to kill anyone,” the girl replied.

Ash blinked. That- wasn’t exactly reassuring. All he could manage to do was nod, a baffled expression on his face. It seemed to pacify her, because she pressed her badge and muttered, “we’re clear. You guys, come through.” To Ash’s continued bafflement, two boys around the same age as the girl, followed by one very large female Klingon, barged into his quarters. L’Rell nodded her approval.

“Very frightening, little human girl. I would have been terrified if I was a human.”

“Don’t patronize me,” the girl rolled he eyes.

“No, seriously, Momoko,” the boy in scrubs said. “If I didn’t know any better I would have sworn you actually planned to kill someone else!”

“Wait, someone else?!” Ash yelped, totally ignoring L’Rell’s appearance. “You killed someone?”

“Not yet,” the girl replied. “We needed your help. And L’Rell’s. And seriously- do. Not. Scream,” she reiterated. “We know everything. We know who you really are, and more importantly, we know who the so-called ‘Captain Georgiou’ really is. And we think we know what she’s planning. All of us do. I know you don’t care one way or another, but the rest of us don’t plan to let that crazy bitch eat anyone.”

“Or blow up Qo’noS,” the other boy cut in.

“Or blow up Qo’noS,” the girl confirmed.

Ash was still stuck on the first part. “Wait, you know she’s the Terran Emperor? And you think she wants to eat you?”

“She eats people,” the boy in scrubs nodded.

Thrown for a loop, Ash looked blankly at L’Rell, who just sort of shrugged, in a “what can you do?” Sort of way.

“Alright,” he said, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the last five minutes. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

TBC... 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh. This has been a terrible month. My computer’s motherboard crapped out and the new one still hasn’t gotten here. I think the USPS lost it, so I’m using my iPad for everything. It’s kind of a pain. I got the flu and was out of commission for a week, and then immediately had to go back to work taking double shifts because a coworker went into septic shock after another health problem. She’s survived and is now back at work but can only do half shifts once or twice a week, so guess who’s stuck with the extra work? If you guessed me, you’re right! 
> 
> But considering I’m just cranky and tired, I didn’t almost die, I should probably knock it off. This is why I don’t try to set up a posting schedule though- whenever I try, something crazy knocks it off course. 
> 
> Hopefully it won’t take me another month next time though.
> 
> At least I have a keyboard for this thing, so I can actually type somewhat normally...


End file.
